


Independence Day

by kateyes224



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Post-Movie: The X-Files: I Want To Believe (2008), Pre-X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 02:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15184508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateyes224/pseuds/kateyes224
Summary: Mulder and Scully navigate the new but oddly familiar landscape of lives lived apart after being together. Post-IWTB, pre-revivial Fourth of July fluff and angst.





	Independence Day

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by some requests I'd gotten about whether Mulder was capable of giving Scully a meaningful gift. The answer is, of course, yes; even when the gifts are anything but traditional.

Mulder knocks on her door and goes to straighten his tie before he remembers he’s not wearing one. Hasn’t worn one in years. He tries not to fidget, suspecting she may be eyeing him through her peephole, but he ends up shifting back and forth on his feet the longer it takes her to answer the door.

He triple-guesses his outfit for the eighteenth time that night, and berates himself for it, feeling ridiculous for feeling ridiculous.

He hears her soft, even footfalls as she approaches the door, then a long moment of silence.

She _is_ peeping.

When she opens the door, her apartment seems to exhale at the exact same moment he does.

“Hi.”

“Hey, Scully.”

Scully in her angular new suits and jewel-toned scrubs seems a completely separate being from this creature. This woman’s hair is pulled up and away from her face and off her neck. She’s wearing a sky-colored sweater that deepens the blue of her eyes to a dark violet in the low light, and jeans that he knows for a fact have been worn in from years of washing in hard water. He’d washed them a few dozen times himself. She’s hardly wearing a stitch of makeup.

Fuck losing nine minutes. For a moment, he thinks he might have lost a quarter of a century.

“You look good.”

She knows. Blushes anyway.

“Thanks. You look pretty good yourself.”

“Ladies always love a man in a polo.”

He keeps his eyes trained on hers, deliberately not looking over her shoulder.

_I need a space of my own, Mulder_ , she’d said, a little over a year ago now. He’d hated her for it then but he’d respected it just the same.

He still hates it, and he still respects it. He doesn’t want to taint it by seeing it without her say-so.

“Would you like to come in for a minute?” A polite and completely insincere invitation. She hadn’t even wanted him to pick her up tonight, he reminds himself.

“Nope, I think we can just go. Otherwise we’ll be late.”

She looks cautious, but grabs her purse and her jacket from the table by the front door. “Late? I thought we were just going to grab dinner?”

Mulder waits while she turns to close the door. Her old housekey for their country home jangles on her keyring next to the one she uses to lock up.

He doesn’t have a key for her new place.

“We are going to grab dinner. But I have a surprise later tonight and we’ve got to get a move on or else we’ll miss it.”

She makes a show of slowing and sighs audibly, predictably skeptical and apparently willing to play her old part for old time’s sake. He walks her out to the pickup truck and circles to her side, opening it for her and handing her in.

She chuckles. “Mulder, you’ve never been this solicitous. What have you got planned? Not another haunted house, I hope.”

Closing her door, he smiles down at her through the half-closed window. “You know I only save those for Christmas, Scully.”

He drives them back out of town the same way he came, threading his way from interstate to highway to two-lane country road before stopping to pick up dinner.

She smiles when he pulls in front of her favorite barbecue joint and hops out of the truck to pay for a couple of messy brisket sandwiches dripping in tangy sauce and wrapped in foil and white styrofoam containers of coleslaw and baked beans. Two thick slices of cornbread are immediately set upon by Scully when he returns to the truck, and he laughs and slaps her hands away.

The sound of her giggle bouncing around the cab of the truck before it’s snatched out the window and into the night air nearly wipes the smirk right off of his face. He’d been almost sure he’d never be able to make her laugh again.

Another twenty miles past the house he’s still trying to think of as his and not theirs and he pulls off the main road and into a dirt lot that is already filled with cars. They’re a few hundred yards from where the local high school campus sprawls out in the dark.

Mulder grabs a blanket from the bed of the truck and ties the handles of the plastic bag of food into bunny ears. At her questioning look, he nods in the direction of the football field glowing under floodlights in the distance. Smells and sounds from booths selling all manner of deep-fried food, kettle corn, and funnel cake waft towards them in the heavy July air.

A dunk tank, a pony ride, and a small petting zoo are set up in the home team’s end zone. An emu is being walked around on a leash, to the delight and horror of many small children. And just beyond that, a wooden stage and dance floor. A band of morose young teens is going about the serious business of setting up their equipment, plugging guitars into amplifiers and strumming chords that twang offkey.

The lead singer and DJ, a girl with a shock of a bright turquoise pixie cut, stands in front of the speakers and clicks around on her laptop in the meantime. The dance floor is almost full with couples swaying back and forth to an unpredictable mix of R&B and country. Children of all ages dart in between them in an endless game of tag.

“Mulder, what are we doing here?”

Mulder keeps walking just beyond the stage where other families have set up their own circles of chairs and picnic blankets. He makes a show of unfurling the Navajo blanket on the ground, smooths the wrinkles before setting the plastic bag of food in the center. “Just make yourself comfortable. You want anything to drink? Some funnel cake? We have about twenty minutes before the show.”

Scully crosses her arms and stares up at him. “Mulder,” she repeats, “what are we doing here?” She sounds, for all intents and purposes, like she’s just surveyed a crime scene and found it conspicuously lacking in what he’d once half-ironically referred to as a distinct paranormal bouquet.

“What, you don’t trust me?” Mulder asks, blinking down at her, and he nearly chokes on the question like a popcorn kernel has lodged itself in the back of his throat when he remembers that no, she probably doesn’t. Not anymore.

Mulder shakes his head when it takes her a second too long to answer. “Don’t worry, Doc. Have a seat, I’ll go grab us a drink.”

Scully purses her lips at him and glances over her shoulder as the band strikes up a rousing, if overly-metal, rendition of Yankee Doodle. “Hurry back,” she murmurs, then bends to sit cross-legged on the blanket and starts untying the plastic bag.

Mulder hustles off, taking a wide berth around a game of cornhole to where a keg and a cash booth have been set up. He pays $10 for two light beers in red Solo cups and turns, almost knocking over a man and his wife in their late 30s.

“Mr. Scully?” the young man asks, hesitant. Mulder sputters, trying to hide it by taking a sip of his beer.

“Uhhhh, no, I’m Fox Mulder. Dr. Scully is my…” Shit. This was always the hard part. “…my partner.” It’s never not been true. “Are you Mr. and Mrs. Fearon?”

The young man nods and glances at his wife, who smiles up uncertainly at Mulder. They both turn. Behind them sits a boy in a wheelchair. “And this is Christian.” Christian is pale, with huge, almond-shaped blue eyes and a tangle of messy brown hair. He’s got a crocheted afghan tucked around his legs and a beanie on his head despite the humid July heat, but two rosy spots color his cheeks, belying a fragile bloom of health.

Mulder smiles down at him, bends to look into the boy’s eyes. “Hi, Christian. My name is Mulder. I’m a friend of Dr. Scully’s. She’s been wondering about you.”

Christian’s eyes crinkle, a grin lighting up his face. “I’ve been wondering about her, too.”

Mulder leads the way back over to where Scully is sitting on their blanket, the Fearons following slowly but surely behind him. Just as he calls out to Scully and she turns, the lights around the makeshift fairground all dim simultaneously, leading to whoops and hollers and lascivious catcalls.

In the dark, Mulder settles in on the blanket next to Scully and hands her a beer. “Mulder, who was with-”

“Shhhh, Scully,” Mulder whispers, just as the band gets going with Ray Charles’ version of America the Beautiful.

The drummer starts military cadence on the drums and the teen girl with the turquoise hair starts belting out the first verse in a honeyed alto.

_Oh beautiful, for heroes proved,_

_In liberating strife,_

_Who more than self, our country loved,_

_And mercy more than life_

Just as the chorus gets going, the first pops and whistles of fireworks start echoing from a couple of hundred yards down the way. The crowd draws in a collective gasp as blue and green and red and white sparks erupt overhead.

Scully’s eyes are trained on the sky for a long moment before she turns back to Mulder. The wide smile on her face lights over him just as the next round of fireworks explode in a shimmer and a pop of noise. But her eyes slip past him and catch sight of the profile of the young boy who was trailing in Mulder’s wake.

Christian’s hands are planted firmly over his ears, transfixed by the showers of color blazing overhead.

“Christian?” Mulder sees her mouth silently before looking up at him, confused.

Mulder bends close to her ear, loud enough that she can hear over the gunshot blast of the next round of fireworks. “Last week, you got a voicemail at the house from his new treating physician, a Dr. Rajkumar. She thought you’d want to know…he’s been doing well enough as result of your treatment plan that his parents were going to take him to see the fireworks this year.”

Scully can’t seem to tear her gaze away from the boy’s face. His eyes, saucer-wide, haven’t left the sky, and his smile can’t get any bigger.

Mulder watches Scully watching Christian for the next ten minutes, as the fireworks and the band get louder and more intense.

When the final crescendo and the finale culminate above them, she looks up at Mulder, whispers her thanks, and wraps an arm around his waist. As she settles into a spot that feels more comfortable than it should for going without the weight and shape of her for so long, he hopes she feels free, if only for tonight.


End file.
